CANNES: Romania director Cristian Mungiu returns to Cannes with Beyond the Hills, his first feature since 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days which won the Palm d'Or in 2007 and the director has a tough act to follow after such a stunning success.

CANNES:  The 75-year-old British director Ken Loach has been in competition in Cannes nine times and his films never fail to draw appreciation from Cannes critics and audiences.  While he has taken home only one Palme d'Or in 2006 with his Wind that Shakes the Barley Cannes juries have awarded his films three other prizes over his 40 year career and he is unlikely to go home empty handed this year with The Angel's Share.

CANNES: Cannes Film Festival had to change the rules after Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher swept so many awards to prevent any film from dominating the festival to that extent in future.  If not the festival might face the same dilemma again with Haneke's Amour, a film of such outstanding merit on all fronts it is hard to see anything else as being in the same league.

Film New Europe is happy to announce its partnership with Locarno Film Festival's Industry Days STEP IN initiative.  STEP IN will provide insight and look for global and pan-European solutions into the major issues the AV industry in Central and Eastern Europe is facing in its inaugural session 5 August. Film New Europe applauds this initiative and will be a key partner with members of the five members of the FNE team present in Locarno.  Watch FNE daily for our series of Country Reports to be published in the run-up to STEP IN.

Film New Europe is happy to announce its partnership with Locarno Film Festival's Industry Days STEP IN initiative. STEP IN will provide insight and look for global and pan-European solutions into the major issues the AV industry in Central and Eastern Europe is facing in its inaugural session 5 August. Film New Europe applauds this initiative and will be a key partner with members of the five members of the FNE team present in Locarno. Watch FNE daily for our series of Country Reports to be published in the run-up to STEP IN.

{mosimage}KARLOVY VARY: The 47^th Karlovy Vary IFF (29 June-7 July 2012) awarded its Grand Prix to Norwegian director Martin Lund for his film The Almost Man. The team from the winning film told the audience an almost fairy tale-like story at the closing ceremony about how they had been surprised to be invited, had rushed to finish the film to be on time to be screened in the competition and had arrived at the festival carrying the print of the film in their hands with no expectations of any awards.

KARLOVY VARY: Nine Polish films are screening at the 47th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (www.kviff.com) with seven of the nine in official competition.

FNE together with Europa Distribution today launches its new Distributor of the Month series. In recognition of the hard work and excellence of European distributors and the common problems they face especially in the transition to digitalization we choose a distributor from each country covered by FNE each month. We look at the challenges and the successes faced by those distributors who are members of Europa Distribution with a special series of interviews that offer insights that other distributors of European films can benefit from and a platform for the exchange of ideas. This month we focus on Poland and we launch our series with an interview with Jakub Duszynski, the Co-President of Europa Distribution who is Head of Acquisitions for Gutek Film.

MOSCOW: The 34 Moscow International Film Festival (21-30 June 2012) ended with the British film Junkhearts directed by Tinge Krishnan winning the Golden George for Best Film and an honourary Life Time Achievement award for festival guest Catherine Deneuve which was presented by the new Russian Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky.